APACHES

By Lorenzo Carcaterra

Reviewed by Mike Crowl

Lorenzo Carcaterra is best known for his true-life story, Sleepers, which has now been filmed. In his novel, Apaches, he appears to have kept one eye on the cinematic possibilities, with the result that the book starts off with considerable intensity and style, but deteriorates into a nonsensical piece climaxing in a gun-battle to outdo Rambo. I had ignored this over-the-top approach earlier on, because Carcaterra's abilities as a writer are undeniable, but the ending seemed to me plain silly. The book concerns six New York cops who are all disabled in the course of duty. Each of them has a strong desire to get back to doing the job they love, but they've been placed on the scrap heap. Lest we be confused about what I mean by disabled, by the way, let me say that one of them has survived falling on top of an exploding grenade, while another survived a shoot-out in an elevator with six other armed baddies. Of course the baddies never survive. More than that, these guys are capable of such top-class detective work that there is little suspense in waiting for them to bring the criminals in. With incredible ease they find the low-life who abducts a young girl in the opening scene (and have him disposed of in an outside-the-law manner), and know exactly how the big villain of the story does her drug running. (Why no one else has picked her up is never explained.) With a bit more suspense and a stronger climax, this would have been an excellent thriller.

Published by Century 1997

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